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MMORPG Features, whats good and what isn't!!!
MrVice
Member Posts: 197
As anybody who has ever read anything I"ve ever posted you will know that I have one hell of a big mouth. So this time I'm just going to start the thread unstead of spamming it with my two cents. That will come after you all of posted your thoughts.
What I want to discuss here in the forum is what MMORPG features did you find useful, fun, and entertaining and which features really should have been called bugs? Also I would like to discuss features you have come up with for a perticular mmorpg or just all mmorpgs imperticular.
Thanks,
I'm very interested in what you all have to say.
Mr. Vice 
Comments
arnt you vince from the offical forums of ryzom? ill give me 2 cents in none lame combat like l2
defining lame:just click attack and sit there bored as hell why your char attacks one of the most turn off on l2 was the lame combat
another have pvp to a certain degree not like l2 were you have some high ass lvl kill you and then you lose xp another turn off of l2 ill think of more when they pop up in me head
a job of a lorer is to preach the history of chaos with out the lorer of chaos all would be in chaos
Take a deep drink of your demon Lad, tonight we tangle with the fire in the gut.
What a mmorpg needs to be sucesfull/fun
Base example: Ultima Online
It's systems were arguably the best and still are. It has the best basic systems of all mmo's excluding questing.
Every mmo should have:
player run vendors
an auction system
player housing that isn't static housing "in other words uo housing apposed to ffxi housing"
a good crafting system "where items are all slightly different based on skill/chance and have crafters names on them." Qaulity also rises with skill
a good pvp system
a good travel system including player mounts/drivable vehicles
A non treadmill based advancement system ala skills instead of levels
hightly customizable characters based on there jobs/skills , not only there appearance
Items that look cool, and change the apearence of your character each kind of sword should look different same with armor etc, and there should be some customization options.
random loot drops
unique drops
good quests not just cookie cutter missions.
cool items you want to get
player shops, able to set up shop somewhere with your vendor via your house or other means, where you get to decide where you advertise and try to sell yer wares.
The list goes on, basically every new mmo should have at least what uo had and should add on to that.
If you mmorpg can't have at least the basic things that made uo good, thats pretty damn sad.
Sorry thats a little sloppy the formating of the forums sucks.
I think whats the most interesting thing in a game and makes if awfully fun is the combat, and the quest system. In combat most mmorpg makes you stand there and all you do is hit the monster wit the same moves over and over and over and over again. How fun is that? If we could have free of movement in the game and each move varies of different moves and it would actually take some skills to actually kill this monster!! Now that is fun! Who agrees with me?
Check out this game and its combat system http://www.ryl.com.my
And about the questing system. I love doing quest and getting alot of item,money and exp ect.... But most game would give you a quest every lvl or every 2-3 lvl (such as everquest) What would be "fun" is you get quest all the time......and at least 2 per lvl ..... In higher lvl its hard to get exp and usualy i would do quest to help me get some exp without spending hours trying to get to the next lvl .....but like in everquest i guess your screwed....
wait... arent u the same guy who about 4-5 days ago said L2 has crappy graphics... lol maybe u should try playing the game before u bash it ^^... you forgot to mention the PK penalty system which keeps griefing uber low (i played beta for about 3 months total now and i've been PK'd once =P)... so yes ur rite... some high lvl can come kick ur ass but unless ur bugging the hell out of them they probably wont...
i dunno wut u got against L2 or y u keep flaming it wen u obviously never played it (or played for 5 minutes before getting PK'd by a noob for stealing his drop and running off like a 4 year old) but its gettin weak
oh and btw... i guess u didnt bother getting any combat skills or u would kno its not just "click and sit there" combat... go play it for a bit and maybe i'll take u seriously...
anywayz as for features...
a good PvP system is a must... i wont play an MMORPG if it doesnt have PvP... whats the point of gaining the best equipment and working hours and hours for a descent lvl if u can show other ppl up?...
also i hate level caps... i'll take them if i must but i would prefer not to have them... i think the people who really put the time into the game should be the strongest unlike some ppl seem to think... i dont see any reason some guy who played 2 weeks and is already max lvl should b just as strong as sum guy who's played 7 months and hit max lvl 6 and a half months ago... if u put in the time u should b rewarded...
a good economy... im sick and tired of these crappy RuneScape-ish economies i've been seeing in games lately... who the hell thot it would b a good idea to make a paper hat that gives no defense, more expensive then the strongest sword in the game?...
mounts... i love walking and exploring the scenery in games but i also love to do it fast... im against teleport NPC's for the most part though... (but i will use them if i need to get some where fast)
good MOP (Monster Operation Program) AI... i hate fighting lame ass monsters who react the same way every time u fight them... i like having some aggro mops over here, with some that run when they get weak over there and that kinda stuff...
graphics... i looooovvvveeee my graphics... i didnt go out and spend thousands on a computer so i can stare at huge ass polygons and pixels all day (which is one of the reasons im not gonna b playing WoW)... i dont care what people say, graphics are very important in how good a game is whether u wanna admit it or not...
and last but not least... balance... i love playing a balanced game... i like being able to pick any class and still stand a chance in a fight... too many games atm (DAoC especially) are so unbalanced its not even funny anymore... the funny thing is that instead of spending the time to balance these class's they still spend all their time making and tossing out new class's for the people so even MORE class's can go unbalanced...
... ya anyways... good thread ^^
--------------------------------------
What I think a good MMORPG should have (and why):
1. Tradeskills that make sense.
2. Limited number of characters per account. Limited # of skills learnable per character.
3. Ranking system.
4. Housing/Character custumization.
5. PvP combat system, with limitations.
6. Quests that make sense.
7. Travel
8. DYNAMIC combat.
I hate to bring up Diablo 2, as I know its not an RPG, but the one thing that made it so playable and re-playable was the cool armor and weapon assortment and the fact that almost every single thing was animated on the character. With that feature and a good combat system and crafting system, would be all I ever needed.
"When you're in prison, dont be no ones bitch, its bad for you..."
The Offspring
-----------------Censored------------------
Wow... We disagree on a lot of stuff...
1. The very best items should be mob drops, IMO, and the second best should be craftable. I really hate this trend toward "player run" economies based around crafting. Basic supplies from low level critters gives low level players something that higher level players want. It's a choice to farm that stuff instead of parting with the cash to get stuff from people who are getting exp on that stuff.
2. I like having a pretty large number of different characters. I like having the choices. And I like tradeskill mules, particularly in games where being a tradeskiller means carrying a lot of crap. Who wants that stuff in their inventory or bank?
3. Ranking system... ok... But possibly pointless.
4. I couldn't possibly care less about housing, but we agree on character customization. As I have said elsewhere, I thought that was the best part of SWG, and I like what I have seen in that regard in EQ2.
5. PvP... er, ok. I would probably participate in an optional consensual PvP system, but it would have to be worked out in some sort of sensible way. I mean, technically, anyone on the non-PvP servers in EQ can go "discord"/"red" and be attacked by other "red" people, but that utterly cuts you off from the rest of the game. Noone except other "red" people can buff you or heal you at all, so you can't play with anyone who is non-PvP for regular experience, so NOONE does it. What kind of sense does that make? None. None at all.
6. Ok, maybe we agree on this.
7. Mounts are good. I like some instant travel, but in moderation. Being able to instantly travel for free to any city in the world is kind of cheesy.
8. Combat could be done better than it is in a lot of games. UXO is supposed to have more dynamic combat. We'll see.
~*~
neschria
Bludgeoner of Bunnies
...
This is where I draw the line: __________________.
Hehe...
2 arguers, 3 theories.
-- Toons: Someone should be allowed to start a second, 3rd and more toon for any reason they desire. Yet, there should be an incitative for a player to start second class(as a level 1) on his main toon, and any further attempt they try, if possible, all under the main toon.
For exemple: Instead of reading the usual level, you could read: [65 Coercer] (High Elf) Anofalye (BRD 32, CLR57, DRU 39, PAL 22, RAN 25, ROG 65, WAR 35) In this exemple you see that I am currently playing my chanter side and get no or very limited benefit from my twinks, yet, they are all on the same toon. So later, when I want to play my cleric, you read [57 Templar] (High Elf) Anofalye(BRD 32, DRU 39, ENC 65, PAL 22, RAN 25, ROG 65, WAR 35). Why so? MMORPG is a social game, now everyone know who I am and what I am doing, I am playing my cleric side, if they read Hevola(cleric name in current form), nobody have a clue who I am...there will be comments like: Wow you are such a neat gear, and so on...if they read that I have both an Enchanter and a Rogue 65 behind as well, they will not even care to say I am a twink, it is obvious I have quite some times spended on this toon.
Folks that want to start a new toon should be allowed, but someone should be also able to just turn the class switch and the next time they zone, it apply! It would give a neat reason to play humans!
-- Items: PvP to PvP, Raiding to Raiders, Grouping to groupers, Solo to soloers and Tradeskills to Tradeskillers, period! Anything done in another sector should never be anything but trivial, 10 hours done PvPing should NEVER compensate 1 hour of soloing in a solo setting, and 10 hours of soloing should never compensate 1 hour of PvPing in a PvP setting.
Any other way that give the best reward of another sector make that other sector trivial and unappealing in the game, period!
Need a frequent upgrades of the best tools, every 2 months (or something) there should be a completely new set of gear that outmatch significantly the last!
As long as everyone that are the best in any particuliar field earn that in that field, I would be happy, if the solo or the grouping system are abused by others systems(giving the best solo or group tools in those fields), I will quit, right away!
If I want to group or to solo(and reach the top of those systems), anyone that expect me to do tradeskilling, to raid or to PvP is clearly more insane then me!
-- Zones with a flag: Each zone should be awarded as a tradeskilling, soloing, grouping, raiding or Pvp zone and be design accordingly. In such a zone, everything is fine tuned to it. And there can be as much challenge in any form, so yes, a Dragon can be soloed in a soloing zone and hand over the best soloing rewards. The challenge of every activity can be thinked and developped to work just fine. It is pretty obvious that getting a high challenge for 50 persons required less work then making it challenging for only 1, because at 50, they have coordination issues. But it can be done and it MUST be done that way!
-- Intelligent levels caps: Anyone that exceed the level cap of a zone should be able to be of the actual level cap limit, so he can enjoy the zone as much as he want, but he cant abuse the zone with levels or powers exceeding the intented challenge of the zone, if you want to farm goblins with a level 100 toon do it alone or as a level 20, dont mess with folks around that want to play and have fun! That idea work great if you have AAs for each level range so someone can always always always hunt more...but will mostly do it with RL friends then anything else(without PL them or playing a twink they might not really want to play).
-- Unlimited XP: Unlimited XP and gear system within limited amount of levels, there need to be level range AAs, this idea pretty much work with the level cap thing, so someone that want to be the King of Goblins hunting area can always improve his level range AAs should he care that much. Most players will not care much over this, this is designed for hardcores or for folks that group with RL friends and to keep them motivated doing it and not only to do it to be with friends.
Yes, someone will farm the lowest dungeons to have as many AAs possible there, so what, he care to rule that dungeon, let him, he certainly deserve it more then anyone else in the game no matter how much uber the stuff we do is, because we rule there against the uber stuff, he have the right to rule in that noob dungeon, dont cut his fun! I mean, I spend 100 days in LDoN hard(65ish) and then goes in crushbone and a level 20 own the place MUCH better then me? I will smile and be happy for him, and yes, he rule Crushbone! So what? If I want to rule Crushbone I can camp it most certainly, and if I dont care to camp it, I just dont deserve it! Despite all my hardcoreness, I would be a very casual Crushbone hunter! 
His orcslaying sword is better then my Reddragon tail whip in here? So what? It is just logical, he have the right tool for the right place!
-- Travels: I like the idea of a hard travel ONCE for each destination, but after you did it once, you should be able to move faster in a way or another!
- "Coercing? No no, I assure you, they are willing to bring my bags and pay public transportation just to help me, it is true!''
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
First off I would like to start by saying thanks everybody for responding to this thread. I would like to expessaly thank Papa_Sody and his wife, for their imput. You always manage to have clear and concice imput, even if I don't agree with it. I only wish I had the ability to convey idea like you do.
But now it's the moment you've been wait for, here is a list of my favorte features in current mmorpgs, and a list of things I would still like to see.
Item Crafting
Star Wars Galaxies- Yes it was complicated but I love the ability to take an existing item type and customize it. It provides a certain level of gratitude when you realize that you've taken a standered item and made it uber, through hours of tweeking. Real nice. Also it makes you as a character stand out for other crafters in the market place. More games need to take this idea of innovation and apply it to your crafting system. After all where would the world be without inovation.
World of Warcraft- Yes, I know it's subject to change still, but the idea that every item you craft will be made, and there is no chance for failer makes me happy. There is nothing more disapointing then going spending your last bit of gold to make a nice brest plate only to have it fail, and you have no items left in which to craft it.
Also I know it's in most modern games, but all items crafted should have the person who crafted the items name on said item. Something to say I made that item GOD DAMN IT!!!
Things I would like to see-
1. Customization- I don't want something real fancey just the abiltiy to add gold inlay, or perhaps an insignia on my armour. How hard would it be to have diffrent shoulder pads or a diffrent style of chain mail. Come on people, armour should not all look alike, and I don't want to have to wait till the end of the game to have something that I can stand wearing.
Visors- Helmets that have visors that go up and down. It's not difficult, and it would be nice to see.
Mob Drop vs Player Crafted Debate- Ok I've heard both sides of the debate, and I think I've got an answer. First of all you make player crafted items the the strongest in the game. With these exceptions. In order to make real good, armour and weapons a player must have an extrodinary level. If a person is a low level crafter, let him make items for people of all levels, but have the quallity of that work reflect his skill in that trade. Forinstance a level 1 weapon crafter could make a katana, and it would be usable at level 1 or 45, it should reflect that characters possible damage output, depending on the kind of steal he used to create that item. However it's damage is severaly nerfed because the person who crafted the weapon doesn't know all the tricks of the trade. Maybe make the item slower because the apprentace didn't balence it right, or lower the damage because it has a dull edge. Thus a master weapon crafter could make weapons that actually did more damage than you base model, and would swing faster too. Make these items incredably powerful, but also make them take a long time to produce. Thus the desire to craft a lowbie masterwork sword would be deminished.
As for mob drops, make their power very from just below average weapon quallity to near masterwork, but never let them reach the level of a true masterwork weapon. This way you still encourage players to go fish for items from monsters while still encouraging a good crafting system. Also you should create artifact calabure weapons, weapons that are above and beyond the quallity that you can find from just a masterwork crafter. These items should be one time drops only and are only granted once from a specail quests that disappear when a player has completed them. Any players currently on the quest will be notified when the quest has been completed, and only a limited number of people will be able to take the quest and it will be timed.
So once a player has dropped out, another person will be able to fill his spot in the order.
Artifact level quests should be a once every two week to once a month sort of thing, and appear randomly across the world. Players will have no idea when they are going to happen and which npc is going to be giving them out. They disappear when someone has completed the quest. These quest don't expire. Meaning to say that until someone has completed it the quest stays.
Character Accounts and Character Creation-
FFXI- Ok I've already said my peace about the one character thing, but they did do one thing extreamly right. See in FFXI you may only have one character but that character has the abiltiy to change jobs as much as he or she wants, without any penalty. When you've had your fill with that job, just switch over. This allows one character to fulfill many roles and adds an element of roleplaying to the game, seeing as you don't have to tell your group that you need to switch out for another toon.
DAOC & Everquest- IF your not going to give me the abliity to change classes at will, then give me as many character slots as I need, over as many servers as I need to find the one I like. I don't like having to pick and choose which character I have to delete, just because I want to try out a new class!!!!
SWG and EQ2- Total Custimizablity in the look of your character. I love it. When I play an mmorpg I don't want to look like a carbon copy of everbody else. Give me the ability to play a chinese hit man or a falt balding italian mechanic if I want to without changing my race. *BTW those where my two main characters in SWG*. Man deversity is good, can you sense a theme.
Shadowbane- Ok let me preface this with I absolutly hated shadowbane. And when I say hate, I mean hate. But the one thing I really liked came during character creation. See I noticed that you could spend some of your character points on Background skills. You could buy things you did in the past to excentuate your character. IE I was trained by a swordsman +5 to sword and +5 to your sword cap. That sort of thing. While it might seem minor to you these points allowed you chracter to be a little more fleshed out than everybody else. Actually I would like to see a system that randomly generated your charaters background based on his class. But hey thats just me.
Rubies of Eventide- Yes this game is officaly no more, but there is one thing that I really enjoyed from character creation and that was the ability to make your own class. Yes thats right, no more stuck with balancing issues your character could choose whatever skill he or she wanted at charater creation, thus making the kind of character you enjoy playing. In some respect I have to give SWG points for this too, although their system was more constricting.
Everquest- The name filter!! Where have you been. God I'm sick of seeing buff bot and no pants. Please god make players stick to fantasy orented names, these two word jokes get old after a while and ruin me emerson into the game.
- Things I would like to see
Scars and placeable tatoos- I don't just want one William Wallace tatoo across my face, or one glass eye. Give me a diverse selection of scars and tats I can put on my character, and let me, within reason, choose where these go.
Random Charcter Background- As I said before make a list of things that could have happened to a character based on his class and on his starting location. Then have the computer, upon generation, creat a character background for you.
More indepth explaination of your skills attributes during character creation- How many people, like me, have created a character gotton him up a ways and had to delete him because you made some critical error during your character creation process. It's annoying, give players in metagame info they require upon character creation. I mean if they really want they're going to look it up on websights anyway so you might as well put it in the game.
Well gotta run to my midterm- I'll post more later.
THE VICE MAN
Mr Vice,
As much as I respect your opinion, personnally your system ENFORCE tradeskilling on peoples that just want to solo or group.
It is a lesser evil then PvP or Raiding, but it is still unacceptable! 
Someone that do tradeskilling deserve tradeskilling uberness, nothing more! And certainly not the best weapons and armors of the game! 
Unless the items and the gear is trivial like it should always have been in group and solo compare to AAs skill, then I couldnt care less, but in a game like EQ where gear is 85% and XP is 15%....:) (base 1500 hps for a player for over 10k hps unbuffed with gear)
I would be a tradeskiller if I need to be, but I will not enjoy it, not at all...(I would not PvP or raid no matter what) Do you want to make a game where players are unhappy and not enjoying the game but doing it? Or you want to make sure players are happy? If you want players to be happy, the reward NEED to come with the same activity, not another activity.
Playing is about making fun, not about logic.
- "Coercing? No no, I assure you, they are willing to bring my bags and pay public transportation just to help me, it is true!''
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Quick Response before I get coffee:
1. Understand this forum is not for debate with other people, your thread should pertain to which features you like and don't like from verrious mmorpgs and any theories you would like to see.
2. Personaly I didn't think my theoritical system invoved raids. Actually I thought it offered a nice ballence between playercrafter, which promotes a player based econdmy and interaction between characters, and Mob Drops.
MR VICE
PS: Please don't respond to to this post I was just hoping to more clearly state what I entened this thread to do...
PSS: But keep resonding to this thread by all means.
PSSS: I like the no logic it's about fun cig. NICE!
PSSSS: I'm Done now
One of thing that i like about mmorpg's are the towns. I like to go to a city that will always have a lot of players in it to trade with, get a fellowship with, or ask questions about things.
An aspect I didn't like was in the AC2 crafting system. The fact that you could do all the work to get items and formulas to craft an item and then be able to fail drove me insane. I don't care how hard it is to get the ingredients, but if you have to do it again because your not to good at crafting, well then that just sucks. I like the way that WoW is going to do crafting, as long as you have the ingredients and the formula you can make it perfect every time.
action+adventure+driving+puzzle+rpg+simulations+sports+strategy=def mmorpg
ALL MMORPG DEVELOPERS OUT THERE HEAR ME: "YOU ARE PUSSIES"
no offense.
id
.
f*ck you & have a nice day.
∙name: EViLD0G
∙clan: [EXE]
∙playing: EQ, SIMS, AC, AC2, DAoC, FFXI, AW, RS
∙planning: SoR
Very important is that raising skill levels should not be a grind!
No farming MOBs for experience, no crafting the same item destroy it, craft it again. No standing around mining. Anything that can easily be scripted (macroed) should not be in a MMOG.
Do as EVE-Online and Middle Earth Online are doing and make skill increases real time without the grind or make skill increases more quest based, taking land and defending land, exploring, etc. Skill increases should come automaticaly while you have fun playing the game.
Here's my thoughts or lack thereof:
(1) One of the most important things to me is the combat system. I'm not into flat out PvP but I rather like the RvR system that DAOC has. When I wish to I can battle with other players with a clear cut US vs THEM theme. And when I don't want to then I can go kill mobs or craft ect.
(2) I do not like any system that requires me to play the game just to give another class/profession a reason to exist ie: SWG crafting system. I pay money to make sure that I have fun not to insure someone else does. Nor do I wish to play the whole time to make enough money to buy things that I MUST have. Such as weapons and armor. But I am willing to pay for better equipment. (mob drops are a must)
(3) Player housing? OK whatever, count me out because I'd rather just PTDG ( play the damn game) instead of having a giant time and money sink trying to maintain a house ect.
(4) Marriage? Oh please. Come on people it is a GAME! If you are in need of a real life get one! Or if your hormones are running at light speed perhaps Instant messenger or ICQ is what you need.
Go ahead and flame away. I'm really too old to care. And as the saying goes: Be careful what you wish for.
Some of the (farfetched) things I like to see in a MMORPG
Edited to give some examples and structure (post is becoming a teeny weeny long).
1) Flexible graphical character customization
- Body and limbs fully adjustable
x Height. Big trolls, Tiny gnomes, etc.
x Color. No pink devils, please
x Features. Scars, tails, horns, claws. And perhaps even some disabilities for roleplaying purposes.
x Exotic races. Dragons, faeries, vampires, etc
x Voices. For predefined Rallies, shouts, growls (can be turned off by other players)
- Clothing adjustable
x Color
x Features. Patches, insignias
2) Skillbased character development
- Skills are purchased / learned at trainers.
x Skills are part of a tree structure with the same base
x Some skills might be excluded for certain races
x Some skills will exclude other skills
x Basic skills can be learned almost everywhere
x Hard skills have to be found
x Special skills need a quest completion
x Player to player skill-learning
x 50% knowledge of a skills is enough to take the next skill in the tree. This way players
can choose to become masters or move on and learn other skills.
x No skillcap on number of skills. A power-gamer can have as many skills as he would like.
- Experience pool per skill.
x Each time a player uses a skill only that skills gets an increase in experience.
Experience is gained by using spells, abilities, techniques and / or tradeskills.
x No degrading of experience in a skill.
- Total experience pool
x This pool is solely used for reincarnation purposes (described later).
- Each 10% of experience in a skill gives bonuses.
x New spells, abilities, techniques, tradeskills are given.
x Spells, abilities, techniques, tradeskills get bonuses when the experience is above
the percentage level of the spell, ability, technique, tradeskill.
x Certain items can only be used at a certain level of experience. (Lore)
x Certain items can give a skill bonus. The experience in a skill can become higher than 100%.
- Easily untrainable skills.
x Earned skill experience in the skill is lost, but the Total Experience Pool is kept the same.
- Reincarnation
x All skills are lost. The Total Experience Pool is used for learning skills.
Not all skills can be learned. Special skills if they haven't been previously been learned for example.
x Reincarnation is done in a special environment where skills can be tested and PvP is not allowed.
x Only 90% (just a number) of experience can be spend on a skill. The next 10% should be earned by playing.
x Playerkill counter and Mob kill counter remain the same (described later)
- Complete knowledge of the entire skilltree-structure
x A character can be pre-planned. Secrecy is not attainable with internet fansites.
3) Equipment
- Tradeskill items can be fully customizable
x Shape. Sub-components that can be combined.
x Resources. Different qualities, Optional resources
x Color.
x Features. Creator-mark, Insignias
x Properties should always show creator or creators if different components are used
x Dropped mob items can not be customized.
- Logical drops from mobs
x No fullplate armor from a dire wolf
- Size matters
x A giant armor can not be worn be a dwarf.
- Quality
x Quality depends on the skills of the creator
x The best tradeskills items should be better than the best dropped items.
x The best quest items should be better than the best tradeskill items.
- No failures when making an item.
- Unique items in rare events
x Events are run by developers
x When groups finish such an event duplicates are created
- Mob items can be turned into currency on site
x This would avoid travelling back to a merchant.
x Slight decrease in currency values as a minor penalty.
- Good inventory system
x Filters to easily find resources or items
x Auto placing tools. New found items get placed in inventory at predefined places (bags, etc)
- Equipment slots
x Plenty of slots to increase character diversity.
x Important slots are visible. Rings (etc) should not be visible. Helmet, cloak should
4) Trading
- Player to player trading
x Safe trading window. Both parties should accept trade. After each change there should be a new acceptance.
- Player to player sales
x Player can own shops.
x Shops can be scaled up according to skill rating
x Multiplex shops for groups. Marketplaces, Malls
x Player can hire NPCs to run shop
x Players can program automated 'caravan' routes which can be raided. Guards can be hired.
These routes can be NPC to player or player to player.
- NPC to Player and Player to NPC sales
x Player skills could alter both buy and sales prices
x Items should not include rare items or high quality resources
- Auction sales
x At certain places inside a community an auction can be held (continuous)
x Filters on item type, prize, player
x Instant buy option, Number of days to run option
5) Housing
- Placement
x A player can, to a certain extent, place one of his houses where ever he wants.
- Upgrades
x A player can extend or replace certain parts of his house. Cellars, towers, moat, secret chamber, etc.
- Furniture
x Tools that can enhance his tradingskills
x Lots of different furniture (also player created)
x Functional working furniture. Fireplace, doors, candles, boobytraps
- Races
x Different structure per race
- Guilds
x Guilds should be able to build multiple guildhalls
x Special furniture (upgradable). arena , marketplace, prisons, etc
- Community
x A single house can become part of a hamlet, town or larger.
x Large enough communities can choose a local ruler
x A guild can build a guildhall per community
6) Hierarchical rulers
- Democratic
x Large enough communities can choose a local ruler
x Only one community within a predefined area can have a ruler. The largest wins.
- Rankings
x Rulers can conquer (main) communities in another area to get control.
Only areas of the same ranking or below can be conquered.
x When enough areas have been conquered a ruler can increase in rank.
x These rulers have the power to appoint or dismiss a subruler. Or he can let the people choose a subruler.
x A ruler can have perks like: ask tribute, raise militia, declare peace or war
x Perks costs maintenance
- Housing (perks)
x A ruler can build and upgrade public buildings. Fountains, etc.
Can be build directly for a larger price or commisioned for players with tradeskills
x A ruler can build and upgrade ruling buildings. Castles, etc.
Can be build directly for a larger price or commisioned for players with tradeskills
- Quests
x Rulers can create quests (described later)
7) Quests
- Standard quests
x Fedex quests
Retrieve a number of resources or items for a NPC
x Killing quests
Kill one or more 'normal' mobs for a NPC
x Explorer quests
Find a certain area or examine an object (tower, tree) for a NPC
x Create quests
Create a certain item for a NPC
x Treasure quests
Explore tombs, carvern, castels with puzzles ans traps to attain a powerfull item
x Skill quests
Training a skill up to a certain point can result in a reward from a trainer
- Special quests
x Slayer quests
Kill a mythical or boss-like mob
x Bounty Hunter quests
Kill or capture a player that has a reward on his head
x Tournament quests
Players gather together to hold a tournament. The victor receives honor, wealth or an item.
Tournaments could mean everything. It depends on the roleplaying level. From pure fighting arenas
to poetry readings by bards.
- Epic quests
x Conquer quests
Defeat a NPC or Player ruler by conquering the flag of an area
x Storyline quests
Change the world by completing special storyline quests
- Guild quests / DM quests
x Guilds can create standard and special quests for their members and / or Allied guilds
x DMs can create standard and specials quests for a whole world.
- Ruler quests
x Rulers can create standard and special quests.
x Rulers can create assassin quests.
x Rulers can create conquer quests.
8) Grouping
- No level restrictment inside a group
x The difference in level between players is used the determine the amount of experience gained.
- Easy management
x Joining, kicking, declining, looting, etc.
- Multiple loot possiblities
x Ninja loot. First comes, first takes
x Rotation loot. Items are cycled between groupmembers
x Dice loot. A dice is rolled to determine a winner
x Skill loot. Skillbased loot is given to players which have that skill using rotation or dice loot options.
- Formation window
x A group leader can choose a formation which would be optimal for a certain situations.
(see flanking, backstabbing further on)
x A radar-window can be shown for every member which highlights the most optimal position for him in the group.
It highlights his own current position and points out other members currents position (not highlighted)
- Chat
x Easy chat alias or seperate window
9) Guilds
- Housing
x Guilds can build and upgdrade guildhalls.
Can be build directly for a larger price or commisioned for players with tradeskills
- Members
x Easy to maintain memberlist
x Ranks can be given to members
x Permissions structure
- Message of the Day
- Black and White lists
x KOS lists
x Trading lists
x Grouping lists
- Quests
x A guild can create quests (described above)
10) Number of characters
- Unlimited amount of character slots.
x If you want to test something, want to have a lot of mules or want to roleplay differently. Why not?
11) Death
- Penalties
x Death should not be a laughing matter but shouldn't be too severe either. Penalties can include.
No penalty
Dropping of some currency
Dropping all currency
Dropping 1 items
Dropping some items
Dropping all items
Losing experience in a random skill. The amount is scalable.
Exceptoin: No unique items can be lost.
Exception: No skill experience should drop below 50%
- Mob Kill Counters
x Every type of mob a player or groups kills the counter for that mob increases by one.
The higher the mob kill counter when you get killed by such a mob the higher the risk
that you can get one or more of the above penalties.
This could avoid (to some extent) the farming of certain creatures. The more times you kill a certain type of mob the higher the chance of a more severe death penalty.
Furthermore it can give some nice statistics about the mobs you killed.
- Player Kill counter
x Everytime a player or group kills another players the counter for the player killer increases by one.
When a player get killed by another player the difference between player kill counters of
the dead player and his group and the sum the opposing players/groups determines the death penalty.
Death penalty = (Dead player + Dead player Group) - (Opposing Group or Player)
(Negative = low death penalty, Positive = high death penalty)
This could avoid (to some extent) zerging and random player killing. Lone players against a group should
get a negative death penalty. Random killed player who doesn't player kill should get a negative death penalty.
12) Tactical Combat
- Line of sight
x Some mmorpgs have nice landscapes but you can't use them in combat.
It would be nice to hide behind a rock to avoid detection or an arrow.
- Higher ground.
x This should especially count for ranged combat.
- Weather
x Rain or other climatic disturbances could give bonuses or penalties.
- Distance
x Distance could give bonuses or penalties. No more pointblank archers
- Surface
x Type of surface could give bonuses or penalties. Perhaps race specific.
- Facing
x Flanking and Backstabbing could give bonues.
- Flight
x Air to Air, Surface to Air and Air to Surface combat
13) Graphics (going a bit crazy here)
- Good graphics obviously but I would also like to see
- Morphing capability for spells like Giant Growth and skills like Shapeshifting.
- Landscape shaping like player destroyed buildings (Fire...fire...fire)
- Visible damage on characters.
- Weather systems which support flooding, mudslides, tornados, etc.
- Underwater worlds
- Cave building, for housing purposes or mining facilities.
- Extra ordinairy events like Hell-mouths opening or Meteor impacts.
14) Movement
- Point to point teleportation for characters with certain skills or items
- Area to area teleportation / services for all characters
- Mounts / Vehicles / Boats
- Flying for characters with certain skills or items
- Swimming (underwater) for certain characters with skills or items
15) Safe zones
- A server should be 'full' PvP or RvR(KvK) depending on the theme of the mmorpg.
- There should be some safe zones for starting characters to develope.
- Yielding
x A player in PvP may yield at any given time. The combat will halt. Yielding will have a very negative effect
on PvP rankings.
16) User Interface
- Fully customizable. Key maps, windows
- Macros (no botting)
- Chat channels (global, trade, group, guild, custom)
- Mail function
Boulderdash
Nice post! I always like to see when people realy put some time and thought into their posts, and it's obvious that you did that Boulderdash. Keep up the good work.
Now where did I leave off... oh yes
PVP:
DAOC- There is a reason this game came out of nowhere to become one of the most popular mmorpgs in the world. Like it or love it a lot of it has to do with DAOC RVR, or realm vs realm, for those of you not in the know. The reason I think this system has such an appeal is that almosts provides two entierly seprate gaming experances. For those players who don't want to deal with PVP almost the entire world is filled with places he or she can travel and hunt pve without the fear of being pked. For the pvp players out there the Realm system provides a unique gaming experance. See unlike most mmorpgs out there, where pvp is handeled by basicly allowing people to choose a affilation and then kill based on the affilation. ALA CHOAS VS ORDER. DAOC's pvp takes this idea and brings it to the next level. By giving players Realms, or imposed kingdoms that they must belong to, players begin to feel a real patrotic affinaty with their realm. Captured keeps and relics go to provide benifate for everone in the entire realm, newbies and fogies alike. So the people of that relm band together under these flags and war over these points. This provides a reward system and provides over all more gratification then just killing players for killing sake.
Oh and the final stroke of genius the people at mythic had is that they gave players a seperate experance for pvp. These experance points yeild to lvls in whats known as a realm rank. These realm ranks give players realm points which are used to by unique realms abilities which can be used to increase the power of your character in both rvr and pve. ALso for those people who still would prefer a little one on one action you can also duel in DAOC, however, duelists don't recieve an reward for doing so. So anybody can duel without fear of loosing rank or exp, which makes for some real interesting competion. My hat goes off to the boys at mythic, I couldn't have come up with a better system.
UX:O- For providing a pvp chat channel. I don't know about you, but when I want to pvp I don't want to look endlessly for someone who wants to duel. This pvp channel with help end the tedium of attempting to find a sparing partner.
Things I would like to see-
Battles that change world events- Adminstrators set up specail events for player characters to get online and war over a perticular area. At the end of that battle the "side" that was vicorious would change the story of that perticular server. Hereos of those battle would be named and comemorated and thusly would provide a reward that few mmorpgs could provide. Notority.
Also servers would evolve diffrently from one another, so playing on a diffrent servers won't just feel like playing a carbon copy of your previous one. This would add a whole new dimension to players gaming experance.
Champion Status- If I'm the best there is I want to know it, and not only know it, I want everybody else to know it too. This goal can be achieved through a specail armour that might be granted to the highest ranking duelist in a perticular arena, or perhaps a sign or plaque somewhere that states who the top five duelist in the land are.
Dueling Arenas- I want a place where people can have tournaments and challenges and have a host of spectators watch and take bets. These events would be schedualed by admins and avalable for all player who choose to sign up. Oh and before anybody says it I have heard that WOW is supposed to have a dueling arena, but I'll believe it when I see it.
More notority- If I do something fantastic in a rvr based game, I want everybody to know I did it. Don't just flash a message that Albion has taken said keep, tell everbody in my realm that I have taken that keep.
Group Names- I guess this isn't totaly pvp, but I would like to have the abilitity to name my group if I want to.
Outlets for newbie, or lowbie dueling- I hate playing a pvp based mmorpg and have to wait 3 month of developing a character to get to the pvp. Screw that! If I bought this game based on it being pvp, then I want to get to the pvp as soon as humanly possible. MMORPG Devs should provide players with newbie batteling areas, a place where people can get a taste of what the action will be like later on in the game. Besides providing an outlet for those occasional pvp urges we all get from time to time, this will also help players determine, early on, weather or not a perticular class they are playing is well adept to they're pvp play style. For as we all know that pvp and pve are totaly seprate things, and no one should have to raise a character to 30 only to find out that his or her character is not up to snuff.
Well that's it for pvp. I have to go now, but I'll be back later with more ideas.
All of you in mmorpg.com land, I want to hear from you too. I read all of the posts on this thread and I enjoy the hell out of each and every one of them. So keep posting. Besides if I'm reading this who knows what dev teams out there might be reading this as well.
Mr Vice
After some more thinking I updated my above post. Added some structure, some new ideas and removed som typos.
Boulderdash
Things i would like to see in a MMORPG
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Stats:- I am a great fan of stats, and much prefer them to abilities. These stats could be based on percentage chance, and be out of 100. Or they could follow D&Ds idea of Thac0 and be based on a D20 dice roll.
These stats should cover everything that a character can do, from crafting to combat, through to magic or conversation skills etc.
Race:- Different races should have different characteristics. I dont think this should be reflected in class restrictions however, just because I am an orc does not mean I dont want to become an acrobat. Similarly just because I am a fairy does not mean I dont want to be a berserk barbarian.
However with the stats for each race an orc should make a really bad acrobat, and a fairy would make a really bad barbarian. This would probably mean neither class would be used, but the option is there for the odd fool J
Each race would have starting stats, which you could not change, and each profession would have starting stats, which also could not be changed. There should also be a stat pool, which can be used to customize your character.
For example an orc might naturally have the stats in the right places to be a barbarian, thus being allowed to spend all his points on being a better barbarian. But since he has the wrong stats to be an acrobat or ninja, then he may have to spend all his points just reaching the minimum stats for that profession. I stole this blatantly from wizardry games J
Looks:- I am not a computer programmer but it seems to me that if you can produce one skin then you can produce 100, so why dont they? This would allow for infinite combinations for each character. Also each piece of armor should have different looks, for example there could be 10 different kinds of standard plate mail. And 4 or 5 types of special plate mail. Each could then be given individual tweaks, such as colours, emblems, or even fancy attachments purchasable at NPCs, or at creation by whoever made it. Furthermore each item should be enchantable, and each enchantment should change the appearance somehow, for example giving it extra flame damage should make it glow red.
Gameplay:
PvP:- PvP should be included, but only for those who want it. I am in favour of either of these options 1) an opt out ability, meaning if you select no PvP then you cannot be attacked at all by anyone 2) a PvP area, such as a battleground where you can go alone or in groups for PvP. These grounds can be public, or private to prevent other spoiling your fun.
I particularly like games which make you pick a side, good/evil, empire/rebellion etc. This means that you actually want to fight for your side and encourages the use of the PvP areas etc. These arenas could even be level specific, with one ground for Noobs and one for experienced people.
Leveling:- I like having to work hard for my rewards, I dont think you should receive abilities in a constant stream. If you have got to a high level and it is going to take 3 days solid Gameplay to reach the next level then so be it. That said I think at low levels you should be able to reach a decent level fairly quickly, thus allowing you to get a feel for your character and feel him/her grow early on. When you reach a level you should get a number of points, which you can then spend on any stat. This could be increasing your sword skill, or increasing a profession skill such as a spell or turn undead ability etc. Also every few levels you could get points to build onto your base stats, which would be strength, agility, intelligence etc.
More to come later, i am running out of time at work
MUAHAHAHAHAHA